carpandean

I could see it working for a year or two. Bringing in Babcock and making some "splashes" this summer might invigorate those three for a little bit. Not a long-term strategy that I would go with, though. I could definitely see them being better (but not contender better) than the Sabres for a year or two, and then the teams would cross paths as the Sabres go up and the Leafs crash.

Definitely referring to the corruption in the second half of the last century, not the good that was done in the first.

Oh yeah, the problem with unions is definitely in the leadership, not the membership. The rest of it sounds about right (you could probably look at municipalities and their relationships with unions and find the same thing.)

There are definitely substantial cultural differences. It's worth noting, too, that Japan has double the per-capita suicide rate of the US. Very different and ingrained expectations.

Don't get me wrong, unions have done a lot of good (much of their early efforts are now codified in labor laws and OSHA requirements), but just as companies often ignore the fact that what's good for labor can be good for the company, some unions pushed for short-run benefits that were not long-run sustainable, forgetting that putting the company out of business is bad for them, too. They often "cut off their noses to spite their faces." Outsourcing is arguably the smaller of the two (possibly three) causes for manufacturing job loss in the US. Perhaps, the biggest was automation (the third being process improvements), which was going to happen regardless. Increasing productivity does not necessarily mean a reduction in labor, though, it can actually allow a company to grow. However, managers beholden to "how we've always done it" and unions that were inflexible to changes in the realities of the global marketplace have both prevented this potential quite often. One could argue that outsourcing labor overseas is not long-run sustainable (it's already reversing for several reasons) and companies that have adapted their method to continue operations domestically will be more likely to survive. As for the recent 30 years and profit, look at where much of that profit has been generated: internet companies (for a while), the oil industry, the banking industry and consumer electronics. I guarantee that employees in those industries were/are relatively well taken care of. However, only the last one has any real labor content (of the kind you are talking about), most of which has been pushed back to their suppliers.

So, basic supply and demand. Economic growth fueled demand for labor (talent), which drove up prices. Not quite the feel good story of companies taking care of their own, but rather illustrates that when the economy is grown, labor is often taken care of as a consequence (not always, of course, see for example the empires of the late 1800's, early 1900's.)

I am by no means a labor historian, but let me ask: how did these times correspond with the rise in power of labor unions and the globalization of the marketplace? What I am getting as is whether the powerful labor unions caused a rise a labor cost that were sustainable in a nationally-driven economy (possibly, though eventually commitments to pensions, etc, could have threatened that), but not in the presence of a strong global economy. For example, the Japanese auto industry was small and national for much of that time period (part of what drove the development of the TPS), but emerged as a far more efficiently operated global competitor around the time of your retraction.

I am and always have been for changing the rules for offsides. Crossing the blue line is the biggest interruption to flow, whether it's an actual offsides or just slowing up to avoid going offsides. It's depressing how many good rushes get negated. My long-time suggestion has been 3 or 4 foot wide blue lines (qwksndmonster also mentioned this ... well, 10 ft wide) and changing the rule to "no player make cross the offensive-zone edge of the blue line until the puck crosses the neutral-zone edge." However, I could imagine many others. You could get silly and try a soccer-like "a player may be in the zone, but cannot be behind the last defender when the puck crosses the blue line on a entry." Others have mentioned some:

Outside of work? Responsibility? I would say 'no', but there is a lot of evidence that it is in their best interest to do so (happier employees, less interruption due to illness, etc). Some very successful companies have realized this, while many have not. In theory, if a potential employee has a choice of positions, then they will consider all aspects of their compensation (the package) in making their decision. As such, a company that does not would (again, in theory) have to pay a higher wage to compensate (pun intended).

Maybe not, but their decisions can have multi-million $ effects on the company's bottom line. Bob flipping burgers? Not so much (other than doing something that bring a seven-figure lawsuit against the company.) The NFL generates ~$10 Billion in revenue; if you had a company pulling in $10 Million in revenue, would you question paying the CEO $44,000 a year? (The answer is yes, but not because it is too high.) #devilsadvocate (Note: don't get me wrong, there are plenty of issues with golden parachutes and cronyism, which lead to overpaid CEO's who take undue risks. However, paying the guy/gal at the top a lot isn't about how hard they work ... though, most work much, much more than 40 hours/week.)

Faceoffs are also one of the skills that a player can still develop at this age. Sidney Crosby wasn't great at them initially and decided to focus a lot of attention one year on improving; he's now very, very good at them.

His point and my response were very specifically addressing the killings, which while tragic, are getting disproportionate attention (sensationalized) compared to far more prevalent issues (like the one that you pointed out; even if related.) 1.2 million police officers in the US (perhaps, a problem in and of itself) interacting with 300+ million citizens 24-7-365 and there are but a handful of killings that raise real question (some are later exonerated.) Sure, there are probably more that we don't hear about, but even adding those, as a nationwide problems, it is statistically insignificant. It's like targeting so called "assault weapons" in the gun control debate; a highly sensationalized, but utterly insignificant component of any gun problem that this country may have. So much time and effort put into things that sound significant, but ultimately are miniscule in comparison. Please don't mistake my point. I consider any death, justified or not, by cop, by mass shooter, by whatever, to be tragic. Certainly, for those directly affected, there is no worse thing that could happen. Killing specifically based on race is particularly egregious. I just find that politicians and the media - not surprisingly - pick their targets for popular/political reasons, not for their actual effects on society. Real systemic problems are not addressed, while others are given far too much attention. Is it like asking whether money would be better spent on a terrible, fatal disease that kills 10 people each year or a wide-spread disease that causes severe, debilitating pain in 10's of millions of people each year. Or, perhaps, in this case, it's like focusing on treating the rare side effect (death) of the disease rather than the chronic disease, itself. Deluca trying to blame any problem with young, impoverished, single black mothers on cops killing the fathers is a ridiculous stretch. They are on completely different (by several) orders of magnitude. Again, a drop in the bucket.

It gets a lot of press and there are certainly many related problems with the system that need to be addressed, but actual cases of cops killing black men (even if you included the most clearly justified cases) wouldn't be a drop in the bucket numerically.

In my opinion, that quote has been misinterpreted by many. Here it is: To me, that translates to "we wanted to give peaceful protestors space to exercise their rights, but in doing so, unfortunately, we also gave space for those who wanted to destroy to do so." She said, specifically, that it is a balancing act. In other words, you can't do one without doing the other. As with many of our freedoms, ensuring that we all maintain them also means accepting that there will be some who unduly benefit from and/or take advantage of the system. I truly don't believe that she meant "we decided that if people wanted to destroy things then we should give them space to do so."

Literally literally doesn't just mean literally anymore.

Winnipeg: Swept

What's interesting is the difference between 2012-13 and 2013-14 ... 2011-12 36GP 2G 10A 12P 2012-13 38GP 14G 20A 34P 2013-14 31GP 5G 9A 14P 2014-15 41GP 21A 40A 61P Clearly, his senior year (1.488 PPG) was more than just progression, so that was likely the Eichel effect. However, he went from a 0.895 PPG player as a sophomore to a 0.452 PPG player as a junior.

This. I believe that it has been shown that, all else equal, higher shot against rates tend to lead to higher save percentages. With the bend, but don't break defense that allowed a ridiculous number of shots against from the outside, everyone came here and looked good.

True ... but the Sabres were still playing against the field in this case. For them, it was 20% that they win and pick first vs. 80% chance that the (anyone in the) field wins and they pick second. The Sabres losing was not unusual or unexpected; quite the opposite. In fact, there was a 60% chance of them losing both last year and this year. Now, what the Oilers did was thoroughly unexpected (though, clearly possible.) There was a only 0.5% chance of them winning the four that they did (and that was larger than it would be now due to the first two having the "can't move more than four spots" rule, which gave them a 48.2% chance of retaining the first pick vs. the current 20%.) Even if you look at the last six drafts, there was only a 2% chance of them picking first four times.

Spoonfed what, exactly? 1) Nobody had to tell me that the post-2007 "core" was made of players who were better suited to be complementary, not the heart of the team. 2) It was pretty clear that getting top-tier talent through trade is extremely difficult (certainly, if you expect to get all of your top talent through it) and through free agency is pretty much impossible these days. 3) Tearing down, acquiring assets and building through drafting and trading seemed a very reasonable approach (again, came to that conclusion myself, long before they did it.) 4) Every in-the-know scout spoke of two potentially-generational players before this year even started. The second-rated one, though projected slightly below the other (and with the uncertainty of projections could end up being better), stepped into a new level of competition this year and absolutely dominated. In any year, he would be an exceptional acquisition. 5) Even a basic working knowledge of probabilities and logic should tell you that you can't set as a goal something (getting McDavid) that you can achieve at best a 1-in-5 chance at obtaining (the rest is up to luck), but you can aim for something (achieving 30th) that both gives you a 100% of one of those two and the highest chance at the bonus prize. Again, didn't need help to figure out that Jack Eichel's existence in this draft is what made "tanking" worth it. Without him, it's 20% (at best) chance of McDavid and 80% chance at Marner, Stohm or Hannifin (probably spelled one wrong, but they are far enough below the other two to not make it worth looking up.) 6) Without anyone having to spoon-feed me anything, I knew that what was achieved over a week ago in Columbus was by far the most important part of it; we eliminated the 66.5% chance of picking third. That was far-and-away more important than the extra 6.5% at McDavid or even beating those 5-to-1 odds against finishing first. I would have to be unable to think for myself (i.e., need to be spoon fed) to accept that McDavid was the one and only goal this year, because it takes about two seconds to blow big holes in that argument.

Never been a fan of the C-LW-RW line notation, but I'd make an exception for the Jack-Evander-Tyler line.

You can't trade money anymore. That was a Gretzky-era thing (which is why the "any player can be traded" argument doesn't really work.) I believe that it went away with the salary cap (don't quote me on that.) The closest thing that you can do now is retain some cap/salary in player trades.

Just one?! Weak. :P

Please.

Well, he did have a better chance of winning last year. ;)